Principles Clash Keeps Minnesota Shut Down

By Mark Niquette -
Jul 12, 2011

Seven years before Governor Mark Dayton failed to reach a budget deal with Republicans and
Minnesota’s government shut, he closed his U.S. Senate office
for almost a month after being warned of a terrorist threat.

The Republican Party of Minnesota called the episode an
example of “erratic” behavior. In fact, it shows that Dayton,
a 64-year-old Democrat who told reporters yesterday he can
endure a shutdown until his term ends, will stand on principle
even if it hurts him politically, said Thomas Borman, who grew
up with the governor.

“He felt that it was inexcusable to put his staff at a
risk,” Borman, 59, a lawyer and part owner of a bank in
Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview. “Sticking to his
guns in these settlement negotiations is consistent. That’s how
he is.”

Dayton is in a stalemate with Republican legislative
leaders over a $5 billion deficit that has kept the government
at a halt since July 1. Friends and supporters say they don’t
expect Dayton, whom they describe as an introvert with a passion
for public service who was born into wealth, to back down --even
if it costs him his job.

Political Capital

The two sides say they remain more than $1 billion apart.
Republicans want spending cuts alone, and Dayton seeks higher
taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans to preserve services in the
Midwest state that’s the home of UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), the
biggest U.S. health insurer by revenue; Best Buy Co., the
world’s largest consumer electronics retailer; and Target Corp.,
the second-largest U.S. discount retailer with roots in the
company founded by the governor’s family.

Dayton’s opponents say families can’t afford higher taxes,
and they question whether the governor, who won office in a
three-way race with 43.6 percent of the vote, can afford to hold
to his principles, said David Durenberger, a former Republican
U.S. senator from Minnesota.

“The governor, in the end, has to be responsible,”
Durenberger, who defeated Dayton in a 1982 Senate race, said in
a telephone interview from his home in San Rafael, California.
“I’m not sure that Mark Dayton has the skills -- the
communication skills, the leadership skills, the persuasive
skills -- that are necessary to prove that the Republicans are
wrong.”

Till The End

Dayton’s office didn’t make him available for an interview
after e-mail and telephone requests to Katharine Tinucci, his
spokeswoman. The governor held a news conference yesterday at
the Capitol in St. Paul to say he is open to compromise and is
starting a two-day tour of the state today to get his message to
residents.

Asked how long he will be able to hold out, Dayton told
reporters, “My term expires Jan. 5, 2015.”

Dayton’s stand is hurting some of his supporters, including
state employees and those who depend on state government, and
raising taxes will make a fragile economy worse, said Tony
Sutton, chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota.

“It’s not a principled stand to raise taxes to chase jobs
out of the state,” Sutton said in a telephone interview from
St. Paul.

Washington in Miniature

The 12-day impasse is the longest of the nation’s six state
government shutdowns since 2002 by four days, according to the
National Conference of State Legislatures. It has idled about
23,000 state workers, closed agencies and stopped construction
projects statewide. The state’s economist has estimated that the
shutdown will cost Minnesota about $23 million a week in
spending power, and Fitch Ratings last week downgraded about
$5.7 billion in general-obligation bonds one step to AA+ from
AAA, the highest level.

The deadlock, with a Democratic executive and Republican-
controlled Legislature influenced by the Tea Party, is a
microcosm of the debate in Washington about raising the nation’s
debt ceiling, said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota
professor who directs its Center for the Study of Politics and
Governance.

“It might even be a leading indicator of what could happen
on the debt ceiling, where you’ve got a group of Republicans
elected in the Tea Party who see a higher calling to their
principles that they ran on than to winning re-election,”
Jacobs said in a telephone interview from Minneapolis.

Familiar Figure

Dayton is the right leader for Minnesota now, said Connie
Lewis, a friend who managed his 1982 campaign.

“It’s a very kind of defining moment for our state, and I
honestly think people are glad that they have a leader like him
that they know,” Lewis, 59, said in a telephone interview from
St. Paul.

Dayton chose public service over a life of leisure, said
Jim Gellman, who has periodically worked with Dayton as an aide
and deputy since 1981. Dayton’s father, Bruce, a former chairman
of Dayton Hudson Corp., instilled in his eldest son the quote
from the Bible, “to whomsoever much has been given, of him
shall much be required,” Gellman said.

Dayton was raised in a house in the Minneapolis suburb of
Long Lake, where his father still lives, according to the
governor’s website. Dayton’s great-grandfather, George, founded
the Dayton Dry Goods Corp. in Minneapolis in 1902 that merged
with The J.L. Hudson Co. in 1969 and changed its name to Target
Corp. (TGT) in 2000.

Teaching Science

After graduating from Yale University with a psychology
degree in 1969, Dayton taught ninth-grade science for two years
in a New York City public school before joining the Washington
staff of former Democratic Minnesota U.S. Senator Walter Mondale
in 1975. Dayton lost his first bid for public office in 1982
against Durenberger, served a term as state auditor and ran
unsuccessfully for governor in 1998 before winning his U.S.
Senate bid in 2000.

U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who worked with
Dayton on the Agriculture Committee, credits him for giving
agriculture “a foothold in the renewable-energy industry” by
championing biofuels. Still, Dayton was in the minority, and
complained about not being able to get much done.

“Mark tended to hold the line for working people when the
other side was trying to put insurance companies in charge of
Medicare and turn Social Security over to Wall Street, so it was
harder to find common ground on some of the things that he cared
most about,” Harkin said in an e-mail provided by his office.

‘The Blunderer’

Time Magazine labeled Dayton “the blunderer” as one of
the five worst senators in an April 2006 story that criticized
him for the office closure, an insult to neighboring South
Dakota and a tendency to push doomed bills. Speaking that month
at a high school, Dayton gave himself an “F” for his
performance, according to a story in the West Central Tribune.

The job was a poor fit, and Dayton felt he would be more
effective as governor, said Gellman, 53, who ran his Minnesota
offices and now is deputy secretary of state.

Friends describe him as reserved. As Gellman put it:
“Given his introverted nature, he’s probably in the wrong
profession.”

Dayton, the twice-divorced father of two grown sons, has
been open about bouts with alcoholism and depression, and voters
elected him governor because they know him, Gellman said.

“He was a known commodity, and I think they trusted him as
a person, they trusted him as a leader,” said Borman, the bank
owner and supporter.

Obama Antidote

In his Feb. 9 State of the State speech, Dayton recited
economic indicators, including real median income falling by 9
percent from 1999 to 2008 and 10 school districts adopting four-
day weeks for lack of money.

“To progress, we have to invest,” the governor said,
according to prepared remarks.

Dayton campaigned on raising taxes and has pursued that
agenda as Republicans nationwide have made an article of faith
of cutting them, said Jacobs of the University of Minnesota.

“For liberal Democrats frustrated that Barack Obama is not
more stalwart and aggressive in promoting a progressive agenda,
Mark Dayton is the antidote,” Jacobs said.

Still, after declining to seek re-election in posts when he
was unable to achieve his goals, Dayton finds himself in another
frustrating situation, Steven Schier, a political-science
professor at Carleton College, said in a telephone interview
from Northfield.

“His career is one of trying to make a big policy impact
but being repeatedly frustrated in the attempt to do so, and
this is the latest example of that,” Schier said.

Mark Dayton at a glance:

Born: Minneapolis, Jan. 26, 1947 (Age 64), raised in Long Lake

Party: Democratic-Farmer-Labor

Family: Divorced; children, Eric, 30, and Andrew, 27

Education: Yale University

Career: New York City public school teacher, 1969-1971;
legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Walter Mondale, 1975;
Minnesota commissioner of economic development, 1978; Minnesota
commissioner of energy, 1983-1986; Minnesota state auditor,
1991-1995; U.S. senator, 2001-2007; governor, 2011-present